Frankfort boys continue magical ride to reach state championship game

Ethan Ness takes the ball up the court for the Panthers during a dominant first half performance, during which Frankfort outscored Wyoming Tri-Unity Christian 26-12. (Photo/Robert Myers)

Ethan Ness takes the ball up the court for the Panthers during a dominant first half performance, during which Frankfort outscored Wyoming Tri-Unity Christian 26-12. (Photo/Robert Myers)

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Ethan Ness takes the ball up the court for the Panthers during a dominant first half performance, during which Frankfort outscored Wyoming Tri-Unity Christian 26-12. (Photo/Robert Myers)

Ethan Ness takes the ball up the court for the Panthers during a dominant first half performance, during which Frankfort outscored Wyoming Tri-Unity Christian 26-12. (Photo/Robert Myers)

Frankfort boys continue magical ride to reach state championship game

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EAST LANSING — Frankfort’s magical postseason run continued on Thursday night with a 44-43 victory over Wyoming Tri-Unity Christian to send the Panthers to their first ever boys basketball state finals appearance.

Like in so many of the Panthers’ tournament victories, they came out on fire, lost the momentum, but in the end, found a way to steal back the momentum from an opponent’s rally to win with late-game heroics.

“These guys have found ways to win close games all year, and sometimes, even when we are up like that (23 points), they like to make it a close game just to stress me out a little bit,” said Frankfort coach Dan Loney. “This group of kids is a resilient bunch. They’ll never quit. It doesn’t matter what the score is — whether we are up or down — they accept the challenges night in and night out.”

The hero of the Breslin Center was Ethan Ness.

Ness finished with 11 points, six rebounds and three assists, and his biggest baskets came when it mattered most.

With the game tied at 39, Ness drained a corner three with 2:30 left to reclaim the lead for Frankfort, after Wyoming Tri-Unity Christian had gone on a 27-2 second half run. The Defenders came back to tie the game with 17 seconds left. Confusion on the side of the Defenders then led to an intentional foul on Ness with six seconds left.

Ness made one of his two free throw attempts. That proved all his team needed to advance to the final boys basketball game of the year.

“It feels good. I’ve been struggling at the line this year, so it was great to make one when it really counted,” Ness said.

“This has never happened in Frankfort history for the boys. This is the first time we made the championship, and no one thought we were going to be good this year. We showed that we are a resilient bunch and play hard.”

Will Newbold led the Panthers with 16 points, seven rebounds and four steals in the game. Jack Stefanski had seven points and 13 rebounds. Jack Reznich finished with four points, six rebounds and five assists.

Wyoming Tri-Unity Christian scored the first two points of the game, but Newbold answered with a bucket for Frankfort, sparking a 35-10 run. With two minutes left in the third quarter, the Defenders had scored just 12 points.

“We preach defense and rebounding. That’s what we start with,” Loney said. “We want to keep the game in the 40s and then grind it out just like this.”

Despite Frankfort’s dominant play, Loney never felt the game was surely in hand.

“That was a heck of a team out there (that we played). I knew they were going to make a run at some point, and we weren’t going to blow them out,” Loney said. “They are super handsy on defense. They are tough. When they brought that full court pressure, it kind of rattled our guys for a little bit and took us out of our offense. It’s hard to run a half-court offense against them.”

With the victory, the Panthers advance to the MHSAA Division 4 State Championship Game at 10 a.m. on March 16. Frankfort (21-5) will face defending champion Southfield Christian (20-6), a team that has won four of the last seven championships.

The game will give Frankfort one last chance to prove the skeptics wrong.

“We are just excited and happy to be here,” said senior Conner Smith. “We’re really blessed. I know we worked hard all offseason … It was tough, but we grinded it out and are excited to be here. We love proving people wrong.”